


no hablo español

by aghamora



Series: Flaurel Ficlets [40]
Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: F/M, Frank Learns Spanish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 17:04:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7061767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aghamora/pseuds/aghamora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In preparation for Christmas at the Castillo’s, Laurel teaches Frank Spanish. Or tries to, at least.</p><p>In which Frank is a shitty student, Laurel devises some rather unconventional methods of instruction, and it’s debatable how much actual learning is accomplished.</p>
            </blockquote>





	no hablo español

**Author's Note:**

> The telenovelas referenced here actually are actually real, but the plots I made up for the most part because I’ve never seen them, so. In case you were expecting accuracy. 
> 
> Also please feel free to call me out on any errors in the Spanish/slang here! I have a good grasp on the language but I'm not a native speaker.

“All right. I’m teaching you Spanish.”

The words, punctuated by the sudden _slam_ of a stack of books on the table in front of him, makes Frank jump, and look up from his Sunday paper with a frown. He finds Laurel standing over him, hands on her hips, giving him an expectant look like she’s waiting for him to say something, but all he does for a moment is stare back at her, brow furrowed.

“What?”

“I’m teaching you Spanish,” she tells him again, rather flippantly, like this isn’t any kind of news, and takes a seat in the chair across the table. “My parents invited you to Christmas this year, after I told them we’re serious.”

“They did?” This is a hell of a lot of information to process in all of 0.5 seconds, and he blinks, bewildered. “But, wait – is this so I can look good to your folks or something? ‘Cause I thought you said your dad was ‘el diablo.’ And I’m pretty sure that means-”

“The devil? Yeah. It does, and he is,” she says, reaching for the coffee he’d set out for her and taking a sip. “This isn’t to impress them. This is so you can understand people if and when they talk shit about you right in front of you, which my brothers _love_ to do, and so _I_ can stop getting so much flak for dating ‘uncultured gringos.’”

“Hey,” he protests, offended. “I got plenty of culture. I’m Italian.”

She grins. “I didn’t say you don’t. But it’s not their kind of culture, and you’re going to need to know more than ‘Hola’ and ‘¿Cómo estás?’ to get by.”

“That’s not _all_ I know.”

“Yeah?” Laurel asks, taking another sip, then folding her arms on the table, looking every bit the teacher she has, apparently, appointed herself as. “Then tell me everything you do know.”

As first, Frank hesitates. Admittedly, ‘everything he knows’ is not a lot, and he may have slightly been bluffing, but he’s not about to back down now. So he sets down his newspaper and fixes his eyes on her, trying his hardest to think back to the year of Spanish he’d slept through in high school.

“Buenas noches. Buenos días. Buenas tardes. Rojo – that’s red. Verde, green. Azul is blue. Uh…” Shit. He didn’t get very far with naming colors. _Think, Frank, think_. “I know how to count. Uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis, siete, ocho…” Nine. Fuck, what was nine again? Whatever, he’ll just stop there, play it off casually, though judging by the amused look flickering in Laurel’s eyes she can tell he’s grasping at straws now. “Water is agua. Oh, and me gusta. Te gusta. _Le_ gusta-”

“All right, okay, okay. You can stop there.”

Laurel looks like she wants to laugh at his – admittedly pretty infantile – Spanish, but she doesn’t. She just nods, appearing as though she’s trying her hardest to take him seriously, and reaches for one of the workbooks she’d brought with her, pushing it towards him on the table.

“So. We’ve established you can name a bunch of random colors and numbers, and that you _maybe_ passed Spanish I.” Laurel hesitates for a second, narrowing her eyes. “Did you, actually?”

Frank clenches his jaw. “I… got a C-. But hey – Spanish is real similar to Italian. I know some Italian. It’ll be a piece of cake. Don’t worry.”

“I’ll try not to,” she remarks, grinning, and gets to her feet, circle around the table and pausing to run a hand through his hair. “We have a month and a half, starting now. And you… need a hell of a lot of work.”

“Don’t I know it,” he quips, and flips open one of the workbooks she’d given him, perusing it idly as she heads off down the hallway.

“Now get studying,” Laurel calls behind her. “First quiz is Tuesday night.”

 

\--

 

There’s a reason Frank never graduated college.

Two, actually. One? He got expelled for cheating like a dumbass. But two? He’s always been a shitty student, with a short attention span and lack of motivation to learn stuff he doesn’t care about. It’s not that he isn’t smart – though he’s heard that debated a shit ton of times by the rat pack, and just about every single rat pack before them. Give him a book about some interesting historical event or something, and he’ll devour it cover to cover in an hour. But algebra, trigonometry, biology… He doesn’t give a fuck, if he’s being perfectly honest.

But Spanish… he _does_ give a fuck about this, inexplicably. Many fucks. Probably because _Laurel_ gives a fuck, and he loves her. And he may be a shitty student, and he may not know a lot of stuff, but he’s going to do this for her.

So, like a good student, he hits the books.

Whenever he has a break during the day at the office, he pulls out the ole Spanish workbook and reads through it, making sure neither Bonnie nor any of the others catch him. It’s basic, and most of it is memorization: colors, greetings, the alphabet, numbers, household vocabulary. He’s shit at memorization, but the majority of it sticks, and by the end of the day Tuesday he’s feeling pretty confident in his ability to count and rattle off a bunch of color names.

That is, until he showers and gets into bed, and Laurel comes sauntering into the room, freshly-showered as well, with a handful of flashcards.

“You study?” she asks with a grin, crawling into bed and sitting cross-legged in front of him.

He lets out a low whistle. “Yeah. But not _that_ much. Jesus. How long it take you to make all those?”

“Too long. But don’t worry; this is only the first one. No pressure, okay?”

Frank’s not so sure, but he nods anyway. “No pressure.”

Laurel starts by holding up numbers – piece of cake, he’s got that. Then, the alphabet. He struggles a bit, forgets a couple – including the n with the squiggly thing over it, whatever the hell that’s called – but all things considered, fairs pretty well. Laurel seems pleased, and that’s all the positive reinforcement he needs: her smile, the happy twinkle in her eyes.

Then, they get to basic vocabulary. That’s when he starts fucking up, a bit. Or… a lot.

Laurel holds up a card with ‘spoon’ on it, and he blanks, staring at it for a second, before muttering, “La…uh, spoona?”

“La cuchara,” she corrects him, and scoffs. “You can’t just add a ‘A’ on the end of words to make them sound like Spanish.”

Next is table. Easy: la mesa. Then, she holds up water, and he jumps on it immediately.

“La agua,” he says, proud of himself, and narrows his eyes when Laurel shakes her head.

“No. _El_ agua. It’s masculine. Nouns have genders, remember?”

He folds his arms and leans back. “Don’t make any sense. Who decided water was a guy anyway?”

Laurel rolls her eyes, but doesn’t say anything, just holds up the next card: door. They’re almost at the bottom of the pile, and by now Frank is acutely aware of just how many damn _words_ there are in the English language, and how he has no clue how Laurel’s brain can process so much at once without combusting.

“Pass,” he tries to slide by with, but she frowns.

“You can’t _pass_. I’ll give you a hint; it starts with a ‘P.’”

Frank just stares, blankly, and begins sounding out different syllables, analyzing her reaction to see which one is right. “Uh… Po… pu… pi…”

“ _La puerta_ ,” she finishes for him, then sets aside the notecards with a sigh and nestles herself in at his side, urging him to curl his arm around her. “Well… that wasn’t half-bad, for your first test. Maybe there’s hope for you yet.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

Laurel laughs and presses a kiss to his bare shoulder, turning herself in towards him. “You’re welcome.”

For a moment, they lay there in the stillness, washed in the tide of the other’s steady breathing. Then, Frank glances down at where Laurel’s head rests on his chest, her soft hair fanned out across it, her blue-grey eyes hazy with sleep and contentment, and he can’t help but grin.

“What’s ‘I love you’ again?” he asks, quietly. “Te amo?”

“Mmm hmm. There’s lots of other ways to say it too,” she hums, glancing up at him, her voice soft and lilting as the Spanish rolls effortlessly off her tongue. “Te quiero. Or… te adoro. Estoy enamorada de ti…”

“What you said,” Frank jokes, and presses a kiss to the top of her head. “All those.”

Laurel laughs again and raises her face to plant a firm kiss on his lips. And yeah, Frank decides.

Maybe he’s starting to like this whole Spanish thing a little bit.

 

\--

 

The next item up on Laurel’s lesson plan is verb conjugations. And he’s _abysmal_ at verb conjugations.

Frank hasn’t done a worksheet since junior high, but he fills out the ones Laurel gives him even so, screwing them up pretty damn bad, having her correct them, and studying his mistakes. It sucks, yeah, and takes a hell of a lot of time, but he powers through, until he’s able to form basic, pre-school level sentences, though Laurel can tell his attention span is waning as the days go by.

So, she busts out a rather unconventional method of teaching to help with that: telenovelas.

Laurel watches them occasionally, letting them play in the background while she studies at his apartment or lounges on the couch, but almost never actively watching them. Most of the time he’d just tune them out too, although he has to admit: they always did look sort of interesting, if he had the time or energy to devote to drama that isn’t in his own life.

“It’s more… interactive learning, than just flashcards and worksheets,” Laurel explains, as she plonks him down in front of the television much like she would a small child and turns on Univision. “The best way to learn a language is by hearing it a lot, and I know a couple people who learned English by watching TV.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she says, taking a seat next to him, curling up, and pulling one of her law textbooks into her lap. “This one’s called _Pasión y poder_. You’ll like it.”

“Poder?” He knows that verb, and Frank frowns, confused. “Passion and _to be able to_?”

Laurel snorts. “Power. Poder is power. Nice try, though.”

Frank sits back as it begins to play, doing his best to listen – which, for the most part, is unsuccessful, because everyone speaking Spanish seems to talk so damn _fast_ that he can never catch more than two or three words. He’d known this from listening to Laurel on the phone with her family, of course, but soon his head is kind of spinning and his brain short-circuiting; the least she could’ve done was give him one with subtitles, he thinks.

He does get the basic premise, though. Two rival families, run by two different men who – Frank thinks – both fell in love with the same woman a long ass time ago. Someone is screwing somebody they shouldn’t be; actually, a lot of people are screwing people they shouldn’t be. And he barely understands it, maybe, but there’s something about the ultra-dramatic tearful close-ups and long, drawn-out slaps and shouting matches that makes it… engrossing, almost.

“Hey,” Frank nudges Laurel for the umpteenth time three episodes in, during an argument scene between a man and a woman, full of tears and yelling and a whole lot of words he can’t understand. “What’s goin’ on? Why are they fighting?”

Laurel glances up from her reading, uninterested, then mutters, “Oh, he slept with her mom.”

“Holy shit,” he blurts out. “What the hell – you kiddin’ me? But the mom’s sleepin’ with-”

“The head of the company too. I know. Telenovelas are basically like… one giant orgy with lots of weeping, all the time.”

“This is one hell of a good show, y’know,” Frank tells her, grinning. “I like this.”

“Oh, God. Don’t tell me I got you hooked on bad Mexican TV. You’re just as bad as my aunt.”

“This ain’t bad,” Frank protests, gesturing to the television with the remote in hand. “ _This_ is art.”

Laurel snorts. Frank turns his attention back to the screen, captivated.

And so, over the course of that month and a half, Frank becomes a closet telenovela addict.

He starts watching two or three others, recording them while he’s at work and watching them when he gets home, or on the weekends when he has time to catch up. He’s not really sure how much it’s helping him learn Spanish – everyone talks too fast, using verb tenses he sure as hell has _not_ learned from Laurel yet – but he’s hooked, watching them and sitting on the edge of his seat the entire time – literally. Though initially she’d found it amusing, over it time it does start to annoy Laurel a little, especially when he turns them on when she’s trying to study, but she seldom protests, attempting to suck it up and encourage his education, he guesses.

“Ugh, Frank, can you turn that off please?” she grumbles one night, as she’s seated on his couch with a textbook in her lap and he plops down next to her, switching on the television. “I’m trying to study.”

“C’mon,” he protests. “ _El hotel de los secretos_ is on. And last week Juan Francisco got shot, and he might die, and I gotta found out if he does or not, because then Ana Luisa’ll be a widow – but, I mean, that’s not all bad for her, ‘cause she’s screwin’ his brother, and who the hell even knows whose kid she’s havi-”

Laurel rolls her eyes, cutting in, “Okay, one? We need to work on your pronunciation; you’re not supposed to speak Spanish with a Philly accent. And two? Can you just… watch that tomorrow? This exam is super important, and my GPA is riding on this class.”

He furrows his brow, glancing back at her briefly. “Can’t you just study in the bedroom? Or at your place?”

He hadn’t meant that to be rude, but Laurel’s mouth drops open into a scoff, and she gets to her feet, closing her book and stomping off into the bedroom with a huff. “Fine. Then can’t _you_ just sleep on the couch?”

Frank frowns. “But this is my apartme-”

She’s gone before Frank has the chance to finish that sentence. Reluctantly, he lets out a breath, switches off his stories, and follows her into the next room, where she’s plopped down onto his bed and turned her attention back down to her notes, streaking a highlighter across the page and biting her lip. She ignores him pointedly when he takes a seat on the bed next to her, and Frank sighs, leaning in close, so close she has no choice but to tear her eyes away from her studying.

“Aren’t you missing your telenovela?” Laurel mutters, still sounding more than a little miffed.

“I can watch it tomorrow,” he says with a shrug. “Sorry. Shoulda let you study.”

Laurel relaxes at that, and sets aside her notes, a grin forming on her lips. “No, I’m sorry. I’ve just been so… stressed, about school, and finals, and everything. I’m happy you wanna learn – really, I am. Though I think I’ve created a monster with these telenovelas.”

“Aw c’mon. They’re kickass.” Laurel scoffs. He shrugs. “One day I’ll lure you over to the dark side. Now let’s take a break from studyin’. Both of us.”

Frank reaches out, closes the textbook for her, and tosses it off the side of the bed gently – gently enough that it doesn’t disturb the very specific order of her notes, because he knows she will probably actually murder him if he does. Laurel laughs, letting him tug her into his lap and seize her lips with his own.

She pulls away after a moment, eyes dancing. “You, mister, are one hell of a teacher’s pet, you know that?”

“I sure do, Miss Castillo,” Frank teases, and lays her down, his lips descending down her stomach, his destination clear. “I sure do.”

 

\--

 

Five weeks in, all things considered, he thinks this Spanish crash-course is going well enough.

He still can’t speak a word, but he can understand some – and when he says some, he means… a very minimal amount. But it’s something, at least. It’s progress, and he does well enough on Laurel’s twice weekly quizzes that she seems pleased.

And so, as a reward, Laurel devises another unusual method of instruction.

She tells him to wait on the bed in his bedroom while she saunters off into the bathroom, and reemerges ten minutes later – buck naked, with yellow post-it notes stuck to various body parts; her arms, legs, stomach, nose, with one covering each of her nipples and a conveniently-placed post-it on the shaved mound between her legs. His mouth half-drops open when he sees her, and Frank chuckles as she makes her way over to the bed, straddling his legs, pushing him back against the headboard so he’s sitting up, and positioning herself so that she’s hovering over him.

He shakes his head, unable to believe his luck. “You for real?”

“You’ve been doing really well, with this whole Spanish thing. Better than I expected. So, I thought a reward was in order,” Laurel explains, eyes glinting mischievously. “A little… anatomy lesson, if you’re up for it.”

“Am I ever,” Frank purrs, looking her up and down. “Y’know, if my Spanish classes in high school’d been like this, I would’ve been an A student.”

Laurel rolls her eyes, then gestures to the myriad of post-its stuck to her body. “Okay. I’m gonna run through these once then take them off, so pay attention. And… keep yourself under control.”

She’s referencing the stiffy that’s already at half-mast in his slacks, Frank knows. He tries to send it a message, order it down – but it’s not like his dick ever listens to common sense, really, and so it just stays where it is, stubborn as ever with a mind of its own. Frank resolves to ignore it the best he can, turning his attention to Laurel when she begins her lesson.

She peels the post-it note off her arm and holds it out for him to see the word in Spanish written there, which she pronounces for him. “Arm. _Brazo_.”

“ _Brazo_ ,” he repeats, dutifully, as Laurel goes for the next one, on her nose, and plucks it off, sticking it onto his with a laugh.

“Nose. _Nariz_.”

“ _Nariz_ ,” Frank repeats, grinning like an idiot. The post-it falls off after a minute and goes fluttering down onto the sheets, as Laurel continues onto the next, reciting the words for chest, neck, hand, knee, fingers, face, and mouth one by one, and pressing each one onto his corresponding body part. Most times the adhesive isn’t sticky enough for them to hold, but a few do as Laurel reaches the end of her lesson, with only the post-its on her breasts and between her legs remaining.

Clearly she’s saved the best for last, and Frank’s eyes light up as Laurel begins.

“Okay, so. There’s a bunch of words for breasts, depending on if you want to be technical or dirty. Which one you wanna start with?”

Frank just raises his eyebrows. Laurel scoffs.

“Why’d I even ask?” She laughs, reaching for the one on her right breast and peeling it off, showing it to him. “Dirty? _Chiches_. Or… _tetas_.”

“Mmm. My favorite words in _any_ language,” he says, and lifts his head, grabbing the piece of paper with his teeth when she holds it out. Laurel scoffs, and he smirks. “Technical?”

“ _Pechos. Senos._ There’s lots of different ones,” Laurel chuckles, and lets him remove the other sticky note. “Take your pick.”

Frank hums, and tips her backward without warning. Laurel lands on her back with a soft _ooph_ , and within seconds he has positioned himself between her spread legs, eyeing the last post-it there with a downright feral grin.

“This one?” he asks, and Laurel laughs breathlessly.

“ _Panocha_ ,” she divulges, and Frank’s grin grows wider, as he plucks off the piece of paper with his teeth too and lets it fall away.

“ _Panocha_ ,” he echoes, then winks at her. “ _Mi favorito_.”

He starts to lean in to taste her, but Laurel shakes her head and clamps her thighs together, making a _tsk tsk tsk_ of disapproval.

“Not so fast. It’s quiz time. Start from the top, make your way down. You pass, _then_ you get a taste.”

Obediently, Frank does, kissing her head – _cabeza_ – then her lips – _labios_ – and moving down to her neck – _cuello_ – reciting each one effortlessly, because for once, he’d been paying a hell of a lot of attention. He kisses her breasts, abdomen, arms, hands, fingers, every single inch of exposed skin he can reach, until he’s settled down between her legs again, his favorite place in the world to be. But Laurel’s thighs are still pressed together, all but blocking his access, and so he looks up at her beseechingly.

“C’mon. Open up.”

Laurel laughs again, playing coy. “Ask me nicely. You know how.”

Frank moves up, pressing a wet kiss to her knee, voice low and rumbling against her skin. “ _Por favor, Señorita Castillo_.”

“Very good,” she praises, and lets him pry her legs open with a giggle.

And yeah, Frank decides as he envelops her folds in a deep kiss. Spanish is, without a doubt, his new favorite thing in the world.

 

\--

 

Finally, Christmas arrives.

Realistically, Frank is still very much aware of how little Spanish he knows; Laurel had done her best, but teaching a language over the span of a few weeks is all but impossible, especially when he was admittedly not always the most receptive pupil. Still, it’s a hell of a lot more than he’d known before, and after a quick review session on greetings and titles and what to say to her parents during the plane ride to Florida, Frank figures he should do all right keeping his head above water. Hopefully.

Provided everyone speaks very slowly, that is. And only uses words that are in his vocabulary.  

But he can do it. He believes in himself, and so does Laurel, and so when they arrive at the Castillo mansion, he greets her parents using señor and señora, and tells them it’s a pleasure to meet them – all in Spanish. He even remembers to use the formal _usted_ , and gives himself a mental high-five at that.

Laurel’s father raises an eyebrow when he does. “Ah, ¿habla español, Frank?”

Frank blinks, pauses, then realizes what he’s asking and nods. “Poco. Muy… muy poco.”

“¿Y Laurel le enseñó?”

Frank blinks again. Yeah, he most definitely did not get that. “Uh, no… No entiendo.”

“Yeah,” Laurel speaks up, looping her arm through his. “I taught him. Not very well though, apparently.”

Her parents laugh at that. Getting the hint, Frank forces a laugh too, then tries again.

“Lo siento,” he starts, then stops.

He wants to say he’s embarrassed, but realizes too late that he has no clue what the word is. Actually, no – embarazada. Yeah, that must be it; he’s pretty sure he’s heard Laurel say that word before.

“Estoy embarazada,” Frank finishes, proud of himself, and immediately, confusion flickers in her father's eyes.

They stand there for a moment in awkward silence, before Laurel clears her throat and leans over, a smile plastered on her face.

“Embarazada doesn’t mean _embarrassed_ ,” she hisses in his ear. “You just told them you’re pregnant.”

Oh.

Well, shit. Turns out he may be off to a bit of a rocky start.  


End file.
